87 



THE. DAHLIA. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Though severed from it3 native clime. 

 Where skies are ever bright and clear, 



And nature's face is aU sublime, 

 And beauty clothes the fragrant air. 

 The Dahlia will each glory wear, 



With tints as bright, and leaves as green, 



As on its open plains are seen . 

 And when the harvest fields are bare, 



She in the sun's autumnal ray, 



With blossoms decks the brow of day. 



Mastih. 



BOUT ten years before the close of the last century, this favor- 

 ite flower was sent from Mexico to Spain, and a few speci- 

 mens were procured, in the year of its importation to that oouutry, 

 from Madrid, by the then- Lady Bute, but througli some mismanage- 

 ment the species was lost, until Lady Holland obtained seed from the 

 same city in 1804; while in 1802, another species, {Dahlia coccinea,) 

 had been brought from Mexico through JFrance; neither the latter 

 nor the former, (Dahlia frustranea,) seems, however, to have attracted 

 much attention amongst the florioultural world ; and it was not until 



